


Captcha My Attention

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 11:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14831339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Since its first emergence, Jeremy has found that the captcha issue is like waking up with sniffles and a scratchy throat, and knowing you’re going to be sick as a dog in a couple of days.  So you down orange juice, guzzle tea, and maybe pop an iron supplement to fend off your cold before it starts.Like the cold, the Squip is a virus.A fic in which the inability to complete captchas is the first sign of a strengthening Squip.





	Captcha My Attention

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Based on tumblr user actualbird joking about squipped!jeremy not being able to do captchas and prove he's not a robot.

“You’re slouching!” 

Jeremy winces instinctively, but it's just Michael, being his usual encouraging self, and not even looking up from the Tetris he's playing on his phone, ‘cause this is just a casual lunchtime observation, not a big deal at all. Jeremy checks his own phone. Lunch started at 12:15, and it's 12:22 now, so he's been slouching for a lot of minutes. It's a worthy achievement, but not one to freak out over. Just another day of being totally not brain-fucked. 

“And you’re breathing,” Jeremy shoots back. “Good job. We both get gold stars for being human.” 

“Score.” 

“Epic humanity!”

Jeremy shifts in his seat. The bad posture feels out of place, like trying to brush your teeth in the middle of a classroom, or showing up at a funeral in swim trunks. Why is he like this? Jeremy squares his shoulders and straightens up, as discreetly as he can. 

But Michael is killing it at Tetris. His phone gives victorious little beeps and boops, as he fits all of his squares into the right places. 

“Hella epic,” Michael agrees. 

If Jeremy were a Tetris piece, he'd be the long thin one. The thing with Tetris is that there's no winning. The better you get at it, the faster it gets, and eventually everything piles up no matter what you do to prevent it. Jeremy can practically feel the electricity traveling up his spine. Is the movement he catches out of the corner of his eye Keanu Reeves in a glittery cape, or just a wandering goth girl embracing her inner anime villain? Jeremy isn't dumb enough to give it a second glance. Looking at it gives it power. Instead he logs out of the Pokémon Conspiracies subreddit, and tries to log back in again. Reddit has been his test website for a while now, because he doesn't post on it much, so even if he does get blocked out, he won't have any pressing need to whine to his friends for help. 

The little box asking Jeremy to prove he's not a robot pops up. The moment of truth! This time it wants him to identify store fronts, but the pictures are fuzzy and wavering. Fan-fucking-tastic. Jeremy wipes his hands on his jeans. He doesn't keep much Red at his house. Like, sometimes he has enough for a sip or two, but the last time he tried to keep bottle, he let the Squip talk him in to flushing it. There's a fine line between giving himself the ability to deal with his own problems, and wasting limited resources. Jeremy is eighty percent sure he doesn't have any resources to waste at the moment, which is just great. 

He doesn't have to tell Michael. Not necessarily.

Jeremy can let this build for a bit, wait till he’s desperate. He can walk to the edge of this cliff, and put off fighting till he's about to get pushed over. He can…

“So!” Jeremy blurts out. “It's kinda a funny story, guess what I just failed a robot test again!”

(It comes out more like “it’skinda-a-a-a… kindaafunnystoryguesswhatIjustfailarobottestaGAIN,” complete with exasperated hand waving. Real smooth.)

Michael puts down his game. “You ok?” 

“Yeah. I mean, check out my loser-pride slouch.” 

“Uh…”

Oh, right. Jeremy isn't slouching any more. He slouches quickly and aggressively, jamming his hands under his sweaty armpits, and scowling into the void. At least the void hasn't gathered up enough strength to scowl back at him yet. 

“Are you seeing it?” Michael asks. “Hearing it?” 

“No. Seriously, it's not a big deal.” Jeremy searches for excuses. “It's just the new Fallout game is coming out later this month, and I don't need a dumb captcha keeping me off of PlayStation Network.” 

A pause, then Michael’s back to his game. If there's one thing that Michael’s become a God Tier expert at, it's playing Jeremy’s weird bullshit off like it's completely normal. The thing is, Jeremy knows it’s an act, because Michael keeps glancing up at him as he plays.

“I feel you, man. You wanna come back to my place after school, and deal with it?” 

“Sure, if you’re not homework. I mean… homework! Busy with homework.” 

“Cool, cool. I'm always down for crises intervention and video games. It's the new male bonding.” 

“First of all,” Jeremy says, “it's not a crises unless I'm trying to take over the school, or burning stuff.” 

(Or having a panic attack under his desk, but that was only one time, and Jeremy doesn't like to bring it up.)

“Why set the bar impossibly high? I've seen some people go into level-ten crises mode over losing their headphones.” 

“That was you.” 

“I'm not admitting to anything.” 

“That was a totally you. I was literally there.” 

“You’re my alibi.” 

Jeremy gives Michael the finger. 

“Alibi,” Michael repeats, like it's an unshakable fact. “Al. Li. Bi.”

By the time the bell rings, Jeremy is smiling a little more, and sweating a little less. This’ll be fine. Not even a real problem. Not like this doesn't happen all the time.

“Guess it'd be too much to ask get it to help with my math test fourth period, since it's around anyway,” Jeremy jokes, but Michael doesn't seem to take it that way. 

“Hey,” he says, both hands on Jeremy’s shoulders. “Don't let it in. Got that?” 

Jeremy nods. Michael is being Intense, and when Michael is Intense it does stuff to Jeremy, but that's sort of like the Squip issue. Paying too much attention to it gives it power.

————————

The captcha problem first popped up about four months after the Squip happened. Initially, Jeremy had just thought it was his iPhone 5 being shitty and out-of-date, which it was. It’d belonged to his mom! She'd handed it down to him at least a whole year before leaving. Of course it'd reached the no-captcha point in its lifecycle. Maybe it was even one of those things where Apple tried to passive aggressively force users to update. 

But then, captchas didn't work on Jeremy’s computer either, so it was hard not to be suspicious. 

“That's why my phone is better,” Michael said, when Jeremy brought it up. Michael’s phone was a car shaped flip phone from the early 2000s which couldn't even go on the internet. It was useless for anything beyond calling, texting, Tetris, and aesthetic. 

Christine had a lot of feelings about how Android was better than IPhone, and no particular problem loading captchas. 

Brooke, Jenna, and Chloe all had technology that was up to date. Jake too. 

“I don't know how anybody’s supposed to recognize those curvy-ass letters,” Rich said, but Jeremy was learning that Rich wasn't exactly a letters person. He seemed to read and write in English about as well as Jeremy could read and write in Hebrew, which was to say, he'd learned the theory and could hack it, but nothing was fluent or easy. 

“Hand your phone over,” Michael said. He looked down at the captcha on the screen. “I'm seeing everything fine.” 

“Let me see!” That was Brooke. She also had no problem. They passed the phone around the table, each person squinting at it and verifying that, yeah, they weren't having any captcha issues, and neither was Jeremy’s phone. This went on until they got to Rich. 

“Curvy ass letters!” he said. 

“Uh…” Brooke began.

“It wants you to click on the squares with the vehicles,” Chloe finished. “There aren't any letters.”

“Curvy ass vehicles,” Rich muttered, some of his bravado gone. 

“Is anybody else here kinda worried about the possible ramifications that Rich and Jeremy can't prove they aren't robots?” Chloe asked. 

Jeremy raised his hand. 

“I read a list of robot laws that said robots can't kill people,” Christine offered. 

“You heard her,” Jenna said. “So who’s gonna volunteer to be the test subject?” 

“I have an astronomy test after lunch,” said Brooke. “But my cat would miss me if I died. Maybe I’ll just fake sick.” 

“I wasn't trying to say that Rich and Jeremy should kill people…”

“They can't anyway!” Chloe said. “They’re robots.” 

“Robots don't bleed,” Rich pointed out. He gave Jeremy a look, which was maybe meant to be discreet, but wasn't at all, as evidenced by the way that Brooke and Christine joined in looking at him too. Michael bumped his knee against Jeremy’s, and touched his own mouth, which also wasn't all that discreet. 

And it was like, okay, the Squip had deactivated Jeremy’s ability to fidget like a normal person (albeit one with with a bucketload of anxiety and neuroses), so Jeremy had taken to chewing on his mouth instead. It was gross, and everybody knew, but that how things were now. The inside of his cheek tasted like metal, which was ironic, because that's what robots were made of, and like Rich said, robots didn't bleed. 

Jeremy took a deep breath. “Robots can't…. do a lot of stuff that I can do. Like be a person.” He was pretty sure he'd never said anything so very much like what a robot masquerading as human would say. 

“Robots can't drink Mountain Dew Red,” Michael said, clapping a hand over Jeremy’s shoulder. “It makes them explode. Robot exploding party at my place later?” 

——————-

The Squip is a manipulative fuck. It whispers answers to Jeremy during his math test, which leaves Jeremy with the option of listening to it, or purposely flunking. 

“Didn't you just tell Michael this was what you wanted me to do?” it asks. 

Jeremy rolls his eyes, but he writes the numbers. Since its first emergence, he's found that the captcha issue is like waking up with sniffles and a scratchy throat, and knowing you’re going to be sick as a dog in a couple of days. So you down orange juice, guzzle tea, and maybe pop an iron supplement to fend off your cold before it starts. 

Like the cold, the Squip is a virus. 

Mountain Dew Red works pretty well against it. It quiets the Squip and Jeremy’s captcha problem, sometimes for months at a time. It's just a question of how often Jeremy should take it. Michael’s supply isn't going to last forever, and dipping into it the first sign of trouble isn't helping anything. 

Neither is waiting until things get out of control. Jeremy has been there. 

“Seventy-two,” the Squip tells Jeremy. He writes it down. “Eighty-five. Ninety-seven. Have you ever thought that the solution is not to get rid of me, but to accept me as a part of yourself that you have to live with? Negative three. You’re going to have to do it eventually. Why not start the process now? Fifty-one point three.” 

It makes sense, but the Squip has told Jeremy all kinds of things to get Jeremy to listen to it in the past. Today isn't the day to listen to it. 

“Forty-two point five.” 

Jeremy clenches his pen. 

“Forty-two point five.” 

He begins to work out the equation, writing it out carefully, step by step. 

The answer, unsurprisingly, is forty-two point five, but at least Jeremy gets to it himself.

———— 

Michael teases Jeremy in the car, making him point out every store front, and sign, and vehicle they pass. 

“You missed the 7-11,” Michael says. 

“Yeah, I did that to spite you specifically.” 

“Traitor.” 

“If you love 7-11 so much why don't you marry it?” 

“No can do. That'd be like marrying myself.” 

“Are your conversations always so inane?” the Squip asks.

“It thinks I should accept it as a part of myself,” Jeremy tells Michael. 

“What? 7-11? Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

“I mean, it kind of is.” 

Jeremy looks back at the Squip. Did it make Michael say that? The computer’s smile and steepled fingers are infuriating.

“Lots of people have mental health issues, that they take medicine for,” Michael says, like he's been thinking about this a lot. “And, okay, so yours aren't exactly normal, but it's all good.” 

“And when you run out?” 

“We’ll figure out where to go from there.” 

“That's not exactly comforting.” 

“But get this,” Michael says. “Lots of things are going to run out in our lifetime! Oil. The polar ice caps. Probably the ozone layer. Meanwhile, soda is just made up of sugar and chemicals, right? There's an ingredient list on the label. We’ll figure it out.” 

“Still not comforted,” Jeremy says. 

“Did you know that after the polar ice caps melt, most of New Jersey will be destroyed? I mean, that's a thing that we could worry about, but we don't, because it's still far in the future, sort of like running out of Red. And, real talk, I think once it happens you’re gonna find a way to keep your head above water.” 

“That’s… oddly inspiring.” 

Michael just smiles, and cranks up the music. Maybe he's right. Jeremy hopes he's right. After all, what's life really, besides doing what you need to survive for the moment, and trusting you’ll find a way to keep your head above water when the shit hits the fan? At this moment, Jeremy has his friends, and a game plan to take care of the problem at hand. He still has time to figure the rest out.


End file.
